“Water coming down, Cacher climbing up” (GCQYK6) might define a terrain 5 geocache. Terrain is rated from 1 (most accessible) to 5 (most difficult). The fixed-rope route is designed for advanced climbers only. According to the cache owner, the route is said to be the most challenging climb in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia. A helmet, climbing shoes and other pieces of specialized equipment are a must.

The view from the route of GCQYK6

Geocachers ascend the vertical face of a sheer rock cliff to reach the geocache. The pictures below tell the heart-racing story and the majestic visual pay-off along the way. The trek takes geocachers about two and half hours to complete.

Along the route of GCQYK6

The Multi-Cache tasks geocachers to reach three waypoints before unlocking the code for the coordinates where the physical cache is located.

The route also treats geocachers to a rope bridge that dangles climbers over a deep gorge.

Waypoint along the route of GCQYK6

Paraszczak and Jurko hid the cache in 2005. Geocachers who’ve logged the find call it one of the absolute highlights of their caching careers. But only ten brave geocachers have logged smileys to date.

GCQYK6 is one of the oldest terrain 5 caches in Austria. When it was placed, there were fewer than ten terrain 5’s in the country. Now, there more than 250 Terrain 5 geocaches in Austria.

There are now more than 1.1 million geocachers in the world. But only a fraction ever become Geocaches of the Week. Explore the all the Geocaches of the Week here.